


Winston Needs A Chew Toy

by IambicKentameter



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Fic-in-a-day Challenge, M/M, Trying on glasses at the same time AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 08:04:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2843957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IambicKentameter/pseuds/IambicKentameter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Winston chewed up Will's last pair of glasses, he finds himself in the shop for a few hours alone. And then, not so alone.</p><p>Part of my Fic in a day Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winston Needs A Chew Toy

Will pushed the model glasses up his nose, leaning in close to the mirror so he could see how they looked on him. Determining they were only okay, he removed them and set them back on the counter.

He cringed when the radio station in the background repeated the same tired song for the third time. Will hummed to himself, calculating that if they played it once every hour, he'd been here about two hours far too long to be hearing it so many times.

Someone behind him coughed, sending his hands into tumultuous fits, and he choked once in reflex.

"I'm very sorry." The man behind him gave the slightest bow. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine." Will shrunk away, trying to get past the man without making eye contact.

"I liked the third pair you tried on." He said gently, picking up one of the many pairs spread out over the counter. "I feel like they bring out your eyes without hiding your face."

Will selected another pair at random and shoved them onto his face before he could talk. His anxiety was getting worse, and without glasses to shield him from the outside world, it was only bound to head even farther downhill. "I like hiding my face. Having people stare at me gets under my skin."

"I can hardly blame you. Someone as neurotic as yourself needs something to hide behind to feel safe."

Will grimaced. "I'm sorry, I don't remember asking for your professional opinion."

"Apologies. My professional opinion should rather keep to itself, in my office." The man's hand twitched, as if he was going to shake Will's, but obviously assessed the situation and thought better of it. "My name is Hannibal Lecter."

"Will Graham." He returned. "I take it then, that you don't work here?"  
Hannibal shook his head with a secret smile. "I couldn't resist, however, from telling a very handsome gentleman my opinion on his selection."

"Your opinion isn't-" Will paused, shoving a new pair of glasses up the ridge of his nose. "Handsome?"

"In my professional opinion? Yes." Hannibal gave him the slightest smile, shaking his head fondly. "Those are no good. Try these on again." Hannibal handed him a pair. "See? More of your face is covered, just like you wanted, much to my chagrin."

"Why are you... chagrinned?" Will chuckled sardonically.

"I am only so reluctant because it is a shame to cover such a face." He said flirtatiously. "I have been known, in the span of my life, to have a remarkable sense of subtlety. However, at this moment, it seems to escape me."

Will gave him a befuddled look.

"I mean to ask you if you'd like to go to dinner with me. I was planning on dinning somewhere in the area, but I'm not sure anywhere would-"

"Mulligan's." Will answered automatically. "It's not exactly cultured, but they serve the best Barbecue chicken pizza in the state."

"I am willing to try anything once." Hannibal said smoothly. "I take it then that you are willing to escort me?"

"I'll come with, if that's what you're asking." Will removed the glasses and left them with the optomitrist. "I have nothing better to do now, should I meet you there?"

"Call it an early dinner." Hannibal agreed.

Surprisingly, Hannibal beat him there, and was already sitting in a booth, partially secluded from the rest of the restaurant. Will couldn't tell if this was somehow an attentiveness to Will's neurosis, or if Hannibal also liked being isolated from others. He took his seat across from Hannibal and offered him a small smile. "How do you like it?"

"I can't say I'm overly fond of the mess." Hannibal said matter-of-factly.

Will automatically pulled a wet wipe from his wallet and handed it to Hannibal. "I don't disagree. Germs don't usually bother me, but I understand when they can get to someone else."

Hannibal nodded his head and wiped down their table to the best of his ability. "Do you understand because of your own neurotic tendencies?" Hannibal slipped the question in subtly, but Will saw it coming.

"I teach psycology, actually. I'm very familiar with mental disorders, how to identify them, and cope." Will flagged down the waitress and ordered a beer. "Be honest with me, Hannibal. Are you strictly interested in me as a subject, or was there purpose in your flirting?"

"Honestly, my reasons for being drawn to you are not based in a clinical curiosity, but actually the idea of kinship. Could you imagine yourself likened to me?"

"Two men in the psycology feild, both with their own issues needing to be worked out, I'm assuming yours of course, but both of whom flirted in a completely stranger driven scenario with little to no prompting?" Will snorted sarcastically. "No, I couldn't imagine any connection between any such men."

Hannibal gave him a wry smile. "I'm glad you agree, Will. Tell me, where do you teach psycology? A high school? College perhaps?"

Will swallowed. This was usually the moment that scared people off on first dates, or, if he was lucky enough to avoid the conversation that long, second dates. "FBI academy, actually."

Hannibal hardly flinched. "You help them profile killers, I assume."

"Help? No, not for a while now. I teach them how to do it for themselves."

"I take it you used to help them, then?"

Will nodded slowly, looking up after a moment to accept his beer from the waitress, who, going by her posture, had been standing there for at least a minute. He gave her a tight thank you and continued conversation. He told Hannibal of his years as a criminal profiler, and then his subsequent years on too many pills to count. He told Hannibal about his dogs, all of them, about his newest addition, a ragged ginger pug he came to call Margie, after Margaret Thatcher.

The thing that stood out to Will about Hannibal was that he listened. He added his own insight, of course. But he never just waited for his turn to speak, he truly heard every word Will spoke, mulled it over, and added to his list of things he knew of Will. Will didn't feel judged, trampled on, or pushed over in their afternoon together, nor did he feel that way in the years they spent together.

This was the story they would tell their children, Will thought.

The story of how their fathers met. _"It started when I found one of my dogs chewing up my glasses,"_ He would tell them. _"And it almost ended when I found out your father is a sociopath, capable and willing to kill just about anyone for little old me. Yes, little Jimmy, oh child of mine, he had killed people for me before. You've probably had them for dinner a few times."_

Will groaned and turned his face into his pillow. He hated having imaginary conversations with his imaginary children. _C'est la vie_.

Hannibal's grip tightened around his waist ever so slightly when he moved, an automatic reflex, Will had noticed.

He'd thought about leaving, once. Just once though, just after Hannibal had revealed the dungeon under their house to him, told him the truth about his life outside of Will and work.

But even with his cannibalistic tendencies, Hannibal had never abused him. Never raised a hand to hurt Will, nor yelled at him, those were obvious. But he hadn't expressed any of the other signs either, not once in the three years they'd been together. Hannibal had never told him whom he could see, when he could or could not leave the house, and on the few occasions that Will had denied sexual advances halfway through foreplay, Hannibal had merely nodded, pecked Will on the lips, and returned to reading a book on his side of the bed, his hand tangled up in Will's to assure the other that he was still loved.

It was something that haunted him when he reached the abuse signs unit in his class, something that simultaneously made him sick because if Hannibal ever turned on him, the FBI would never suspect him, and also made him want to laugh snidely in all of the faces of the caught and convicted. "My boyfriend is a homicidal sociopath," He wanted to say. "And he still has more humanity than you. Look at me. Not a scratch on me."

Because it was all true. Hannibal Lecter was a killer, and a cannibal at that, but no one loved him quite as much as Will did.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have a prompt for me, drop it in my inbox at lucifers-lawyer.tumblr.com or tweet me @Iambic_Ken.


End file.
